Dir - David Cronenberg
Hilariously described by David Cronenberg as "My version of Kramer Vs. Kramer, but more realistic", The Brood was his second film released in 1979, following up the uncharacteristic action movie Fast Company by three months. This ushered in a comparatively more sophisticated era for Cronenberg, who worked with composer Howard Shore for the first time and diploys a more learned approach to his skills behind the lens. The movie also features heavyweight Oliver Reed, delivering a memorable and of course intense performance as an intense psychological guru of sorts. Though the creepy elements and outrageous finale are too ridiculous to take seriously, it is still a wonderfully disturbing bit of body horror from the filmmaker that made such things his stock and trade.
(1958)
Dir - Terence Fisher
Dir - Terence Fisher
Hammer wasted no time in pumping out a sequel to The Curse of Frankenstein, with The Revenge of Frankenstein going into production mere days after Horror of Dracula was finished. The trio of star Peter Cushing, director Terence Fisher, and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster are all still on board and as is the case with many horror movie follow-ups, the plot is only a variation of the previous film. Cushing's Baron escapes execution through never-explained means, only to relocate to a new town and patiently embark on his relentless quest to prove that his theories of revitalized corpses can both work and justify their methods. The monster here is actually a normal looking body inhabited by a deformed servant's brain, but as always for Hammer, the story focuses on the title character who Cushing once again plays with a coldly determined and psychopathic charm.
(1972)
Dir - Brian De Palma
One of the most Hitchcockian movies that Alfred Hitchcock never made, Brian De Palma's Sisters even landed Bernard Herman to do the score, so the homage-ness was no fluke. Utilizing split-screen tactics to wrack up the tension and featuring a gimmick of Margot Kidder playing a set of "one is good, one is not so good" twins, De Palma channels his hero Hitchcock in an endlessly deliberate manner. Thankfully, such style-copping aesthetics are persistently engaging though. The women in the film are both eye-humped and flippantly condescended to, making the bloody outcome towards such male aggression be of a feminine empowerment nature. Kidder is fantastic in the dual lead and De Palma and Louisa Rose's script maintains as much humor as it does indulge in increasingly over-the-top plot points.
One of the most Hitchcockian movies that Alfred Hitchcock never made, Brian De Palma's Sisters even landed Bernard Herman to do the score, so the homage-ness was no fluke. Utilizing split-screen tactics to wrack up the tension and featuring a gimmick of Margot Kidder playing a set of "one is good, one is not so good" twins, De Palma channels his hero Hitchcock in an endlessly deliberate manner. Thankfully, such style-copping aesthetics are persistently engaging though. The women in the film are both eye-humped and flippantly condescended to, making the bloody outcome towards such male aggression be of a feminine empowerment nature. Kidder is fantastic in the dual lead and De Palma and Louisa Rose's script maintains as much humor as it does indulge in increasingly over-the-top plot points.
(1979)
Dir - John Badham
The 1970s were particularly ripe with Dracula adaptations from both sides of the Atlantic and the large-budgeted, American production under the helm of Saturday Night Fever director John Badham and the Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake screenwriter W.D. Richter stands out as a unique interpenetration both narratively and in tone. Frank Langella's Count is deliberately non-monstrous, instead being a combination of intimidating, undeniably attractive, and tragic as he is never shown spouting fangs, having creepy eyes, or gorging on blood. Thankfully, there are plenty of other startling and creepy visual moments regularly dashed about, yet the romantic mood, (heightened by John William's typically non-subtle score), is held paramount. Memorable supporting roles from Laurence Olivier, Donald Pleasence, and Kate Nelligan are also on par with Langella's and the plot follows a refreshingly singular path for something so familiar to horror audiences.
(1985)
Dir - Dario Argento
If not a complete return to supernatural terrain for Dario Argento, 1985's Phenomena kicks up the weird again in his well-honed giallo framework. Someone is of course running around brutally murdering people, but there is also a girl who has a psychic connection to insects and Donald Pleasence has a pet chimpanzee as a laboratory assistant. A then fifteen-year old Jennifer Connely is wooden in the lead and the kill scenes are low in number at least by Argento standards, yet the director cranks up the momentum when it counts, with Motorhead and Iron Maiden songs thrown into the soundtrack and arguably the most hilariously ridiculous ending to any of his movies. The quirkiness and of course stylish direction carries it through until all lunacy is busted out in those last twenty minutes which will probably have Euro-horror gore fans standing up and applauding.
(1979)
Dir - David Schmoeller
Opening with an odd, attention-grabbing death scenes and following it up with a number more, David Schmoeleer's slasher quasi-parody Tourist Trap is ridiculous enough to triumph over the sub-genre that it is in. While one has to be as forgiving as ever with the laws of physics being routinely ignored, at least some of them are half-explained with the film's deranged killer possessing some kind of vague supernatural abilities. The charm lies in the quirky set pieces and plot details though. A number of cliches are present, but for every time that a character does a stereotypical, "dumb person in a horror film" thing, they will then just as easily turn around and do something that any logical audience member would approve of. The music from Brian De Palma collaborator Pino Donaggio bounces between that of a typical, ominous score to utilizing a theme right out of a jaunty comedy. Such weird and creepy tonal clashes are actually befitting to the presentation though.
(1990)
Dir - Joel Schumacher
After briefly switching gears with the romantic comedy Cousins, Joel Schumacher returned to horror in Flatliners, marking his second collaboration with Keifer Sutherland and first with Michael Douglas as producer. In some ways this is another horror answer to Schumacher's 1985 brat pack ensemble film St. Elmo's Fire, (as was The Lost Boys), and it features a hip and attractive cast with Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, and William Baldwin joining Sutherland. With comedy elements mostly stripped away, there is a strong emphasis on having a literally dark and quasi Goth-rock vibe, so the director delivers a number of disturbed sequences from the subconscious point of death. It does not go deep into its psychological themes, but it is as snappy and engaging as Schumacher's knowingly campier films and thankfully, the more serious approach works.
(1921)
Dir - Victor Sjöström
An influential silent work from Sweden, The Phantom Carriage was actor/writer/director Victor Sjöström adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf's 1912 novel Thy Soul Shall Bear Witness!. Prominently featuring double exposure effects and a non-linear narrative, it was a startling and impressive morality tale for its time, as well as one that would have a significant impact on Ingmar Bergman amongst others. Haunting scenes of Death's horse carriage collecting souls over gloomy graveyards create a forlorn atmosphere and the Edward Scrooge-esque arc of Sjöström's lead character provides everything with a sincere undercurrent. With the imagery, technical proficiency, and narrative all having a lingering effect on fantastical cinema, it is easily a landmark.
(1953)
Dir - Byron Haskin
Paramount's A-budgeted alien takeover film to rule all others, The War of the Worlds brings H.G. Wells' celebrated novel to vivid, Technicolor life. Switching the story's initial setting from Victorian England to then modern day California and having more pronounced religious themes since what else is humanity going to turn to when it is on the brink of destruction, director Byron Haskin and screenwriter Barré Lyndon are benefited by top-notch special effects for the era. With plenty of matte paintings, stingray spaceships, the countryside laid waste, insect-like creatures, and copious amounts of buildings destroyed, it is as grand of a 1950s sci-fi production as there ever was. Orson Welles may have garnished headlines and infamy for his 1938 radio play version, but the first cinematic retelling has carved out its own iconic niche.
(1927)
Dir - Tod Browning
The best surviving collaboration between filmmaker Tod Browning and star Lon Chaney, The Unknown fuses the former's fascination with the underbelly of circus life and the latter's chameleon-like screen transformations. Here, Chaney is a criminal on the run who takes on the guise of an armless circus performer that falls in obsession over a young Joan Crawford. Working with the actual no-arms performance artist Paul Desmuke who provides the foot action, Chaney turns in one of his many melodramatic and intense performances. Using his own face instead of obscuring it beyond recognition in make-up, Chaney is demented, frightening, and pathetic in equal measures. Recently restored to nearly its original form, it is an essential piece of horror from Hollywood's silent era and has more ghastly details than were commonly allowed for its era.
(1988)
Dir - William Lustig
The first and best in William Lustig and Larry Cohen's Maniac Cop series is a solid entry that works its clever premise in a serious and largely humorless manor. Most of filmmaker Larry Cohen's scripts suffered from weak plotting and his directed works from any number of things, but Lustig manages to bypass such foibles from the director's chair here. The tough guy posturing from the almost exclusive cast of New York City police officer characters fits the taut atmosphere, with sinister music and freaky silhouetted teasing of the title villain. 80s horror icons Bruce Campbell and Tom Atkins join Robert "The Chin" Z'Dar who makes one of the decade's strongest "monsters" in the old school tradition of tragic would-be anti-heroes. It is an effective melding of action and horror genres, made during an era that was prolific in both.
(1981)
Dir - Liliek Sudjio
"The Queen of Indonesian horror" Suzzanna made a boatload of appearances in genre flicks from her home country, with Rapi Films' The Queen of Black Magic being the most memorable of the lot. A companion piece to Hong Kong's series of black magic movies which pits good and evil practitioners against each other with increasingly wacky results, the straight-forward revenge story leaves plenty of room for charming and weird low budget set pieces. These include a guy's stomach swelling up to comical proportions, another guy's skin exploding, yet another guy's flesh melting off after sinking into swampy waters, still another guy ripping his own head off which then proceeds to fly around and attack people, plus Suzzanna flipping around in the nude, getting baptized in blood, and sucking on her own toe while trying to crush somebody with a boulder. Director Liliek Sudjio amazingly keeps the tone serious and spooky despite the movie's inescapable silliness.
(1968)
Dir - Enrique López Eguiluz
The initial Waldemar Daninsky movie as well as Paul Naschy's first lead performance as an actor, The Mark of the Wolfman set the template for a series of sexy, silly, violent, and atmospheric genre films from a man who would make boatloads of them. Naschy's script sympathetically paints the Daninsky character, (who the musclebound, irresistible to women actor would portray ten more times before his death in 2009), all in a similar fashion to Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot, who eventually just wanted to be put out of his misery as not to run around ripping people's throats out anymore. While the pacing has the usual Euro-horror issues and Naschy's chops as a screenwriter are as humorously pedestrian as ever, director Enrique López Eguiluz handles the material with colorful and eerie flare. Of course the Spanish Wolfman himself stakes his claim from the get-go here as the most ferocious man to ever glue animal hair to his face and run around all bestial like. There are also vampires in this one because why would there not be?
(1988)
Dir - Stan Winston
Taking at a stab behind the director's chair for the first time, Stan Winston made the effective backwoods revenge monster fairy tale Pumpkinhead. Coming from one of the most renowned special make-up effects men in the business, the film is of course visually superb. Winston pulls no punches in making the atmospherics over-the-top; most scenes are bathed in either a blue fog or an orange haze and everything from the pumpkin filled graveyard, to the candle lit cabins, to the dusted country setting, to the wretched witch's abode create an unmistakably creepy mood. Genre mainstay Lance Henriksen makes a lean and grimy working man who gets in over his head with grief, plus the lanky and fleshy monster design looks plenty nasty enough to help keep the genuine tone in check.
(1987)
Dir - Clive Barker
Adapting his own novella The Hellbound Heart as his full-length debut, author turned director Clive Barker's Hellraiser became a seminal franchise starter, one of several for its era. Though Barker's directorial flair is more hokey than his colorful and evocatively disturbed written works, he still utilized the meager budget here to create something fiendishly evil and memorable. Clare Higgins may not be the sexiest wicked stepmother there is, but Ashley Laurence makes for a fine final girl at least, plus Andrew Robinson gets to lay on the icky once he gets his skin taken over by his brother. Ultimately it is all about the nightmarish S&M Cenobite though as well as the disgusting and fleshly metamorphosis of Uncle Frank, even if the former demons are less heavily featured than in future installments.
(1986)
Dir - Fred Dekker
Just as his follow up The Monster Squad was a loving homage to Universal monsters by way of The Goonies, Fred Dekker's debut Night of the Creeps is a deliberate pastiche of every drive-in B-movie trope that the director's era grew up with. One of several 80s horror movies to feature Tom Atkins, (playing a cop of course), in what the actor openly labels as the "favorite" of all of his films, his is one of several characterizations that embrace one-liners and stereotypes which are associated with such tongue-in-cheek fare. Dekker's script has an "everything but the kitchen sink" appeal to it, tossing in goofy aliens, parasitic slugs, reanimated corpses, fraternity high-jinks, the nerd getting the pretty girl, a gruff police detective, and a black and white flashback sequence. The use of lawnmower vs zombies also predates Peter Jackson's gore masterpiece Braindead by six years.
(1969)
Dir - Terence Fisher
For Hammer's fourth Frankenstein sequel Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, director Terence Fisher and Peter Cushing were still carrying the series in peak form. Fisher's direction is typically assured and he makes the most out of a handful of suspenseful moments with his usual, effortlessly tight pacing. Even if the story still concludes with the "everything must go up in a fiery blaze" cliche, first and only time screenwriter Bert Batt, (who was generally a second unit director), offers up enough differentiating details from the entries that came before it, all without even a strong presence from a monster. No need really as Cushing's Frankenstein is particularly nasty here to the point where a regrettable rape scene happens between he and Veronica Carlson, a rape scene that was done under protest by everyone involved in the production besides Hammer executive James Carreras who somehow thought it was necessary to include it in order to put more butts in the seats.
(1986)
Dir - Anthony Perkins
Once an inevitable sequel had already been made to Alfred Hitchcock's seminal Psycho in 1983 to cash-in on the then-current slasher boom, the gloves were off to make it a full-blown franchise which is where Psycho III comes in. Whereas Psycho II was adequate if pointless, the follow-up, (which takes place a month later and has Normal Bates in full-on cuckoo mode), has some unique quirks to elevate its narrative weaknesses. In order to bring Bates back to life yet again, Anthony Perkins stipulated that he wanted to be behind the lens as well and he does a flashy job full of Hitchcockian call-backs, giallo color schemes, clever psyche-outs, and unmistakable dark humor. It all gives the proceedings a sleazy and campy vibe that was lacking in previous installments, (and hardly necessary in the first film of course), but if such movies are going to continue to be churned out anyway, at least Perkins and co got to have some fun with this one.
(2015)
Dir - Perry Blackshear
For his full-length debut They Look Like People, writer/producer/director Perry Blackshear concocted one of the most chilling looks into schizophrenia that we have had in recent times. Expertly made on a meager budget, Blackshear uses such constraints to full advantage. The audience is shown hallucinations at face value and by presenting everything in such a non-fantastical way, it both makes them more convincing and offers us an accurate glimpse into the mind of the suffering protagonist who is persistently trying to decipher his own reality. Several moments are ominous, but there is a warmth to the story that is brought out by the central character's sincere determination to overcome their own psychological shortcomings. Stylistically, it is also applaudable for subverting genre cliches and is an admirable modern day example of less is more benefiting the material.
(2020)
Dir - Brandon Cronenberg
For his second film Possessor, Brandon Cronenberg grows more confident with a boundary-pushing agenda to showcase brutal violence in a near-future setting where humanity has grown ever colder towards its fellow man. A work in body horror as was his famous filmmaking father's stock and trade, Cronenberg is both carrying the torch and fusing his own stylized niche, crafting something that is more brutal and unforgiving in its detached, technological landscape. Here, the assassin line of work has advanced to the point of psychological takeover and Andrea Riseborough has become so accustomed to her profession that she can no longer connect with her loved ones. This mirrors her latest subject, (played by Christopher Abbott), who is caught in an emasculating relationship, begging the question as to who is pulling both the trigger and the strings when each is in the other's head. Hardly for the squeamish and absent of humor, it is one of the bleakest dystopian nightmares to emerge in some time.
(1971)
Dir - John Hough
Hammer Films closed out their bloody and bosom-filled Karnstein trilogy with the prequel Twins of Evil. The production company was initially going to make a movie called Vampire Virgins until producer Harry Fine caught wind of the Collinson sisters who were dual Playmates of the Month in October of 1970. The story then shifted to incorporate a "good twin/bad twin" motif, with the extra ingredient of witch hunting thrown into the mix. Peter Cushing returns in one of his most complex roles as the fanatical Puritan "Brotherhood" leader who regretfully burns a handful of innocent village girls in the name of god and out of fear from the vampiric forces at work in his community. As Count Karnstein himself, Damien Thomas is delightfully campy, making that rare undead antagonist who willingly welcomes vampirism to further indulge in his already barbarically wicked ways. The film has more layers to it than most of the Gothic horror romps that Hammer was known for, yet it also still has plenty of blasphemous, sexy, and violent fun.
(2014)
Dir - Kevin Kölsch/Dennis Widmyer
A sly and eventually over-the-top imagining of the dark underbelly of stardom, Starry Eyes takes an age old cliche and turns it into a bizarre and grotesque nightmare. The second of so far three collaborations between writer/directors Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, it takes an extreme approach to its subject matter in presenting a protagonist who has all of the sufficient trauma and suffocating anxiety to go along with her dreams of ascending the Hollywood elite. By first gaining the audience's sympathy for her, the dark descent and literal horrific transformation that she undergoes becomes that much more tragic and disturbing. In her first substantial lead role which mirrors that of her upstart character in no accidental fashion, Alexandra Essoe is fearless and carries virtually every scene. It is too excessive and on-the-nose to be taken at more than face value, but it certainly says enough about soul-draining ambition while remaining sinister and impressive.
(2017)
Dir - Issa López
Writer/director Issa López' Tigers Are Not Afraid takes on the kind of harrowing subject matter that is more unnerving than any of its otherworldly components, yet this is exactly what gives it such weight. Set in a ravished and cartel-torn Mexico City where a respectable police force is non-existent and communities increasingly degrade into wastelands, a group of orphaned children band together and come of age much faster than they should. The results are devastating and López pulls no punches in her depiction of abduction and child murder, but the most heartbreaking aspect of all is how such a brutal, "kill or be killed" upbringing is forced upon those that have no choice but to adapt. The child cast is one of the strongest seen in recent memory, taking on such fearsome and humorless material like the tragically seasoned veterans beyond their years that they are portraying. The fairy tale and ghostly elements that López introduces come off more as an afterthought, but they still provide some startling moments that only crystalize the agenda to meld the supernatural and youthful imagination with the all-too grounded trauma suffered in the real world.
(1975)
Dir - Miguel Iglesias Bonns
The eighth Waldemar Daninsky film in only seven years La Maldicion de la Bestia, (Night of the Howling Beast, The Werewolf and the Yeti), closed out the run for the 1970s. The Spanish Wolfman Paul Naschy penned the screenplay as usual, this time finding his persistently doomed lycanthrope on a spiritual quest in Tibet and coming across sadistic pirates, vampires who inexplicably are the ones that transform him into a werewolf, a naked witch, and of course an abominable snowman that he does hilarious battle with because these movies sure are silly. The story is noticeably streamlined for a Naschy movie, with the gore and nudity being as steadfast as ever while the actor of course still maintains his reputation as cinema's most ferocious and best wolfman.
(1995)
Dir - Rusty Cundieff
Arguably the 90s strongest anthology horror film, Tales from the Hood was a surprising tonal shift from writer/director Rusty Cundieff whose full-length debut was the hilarious hip-hop mockumentary Fear of a Black Hat. Cundieff had actually performed a number of stage plays in L.A. entitled "The Black Horror Show" and joined by producer/co-writer Darin Scott's mutual affinity for Amicus' anthology output, they concocted an inventive, violent, (and most importantly), socially relevant collection of stories. On the nose concepts of police brutality, ("Rogue Cop Revelation"), domestic/child abuse, ("Boys Do Get Bruised"), racist politicians, ("KKK Comeuppance"), and inner city gang violence, ("Hard-Core Convert"), are all taken to deliberate extremes to not only enhance their social commentary, but also to allow for endlessly fun, gory,and over-the-top moments. Lest us forget Clearance Williams III's delightfully sinister performance as the Crypt Keeper stand-in Mr. Simms.
(1983)
Dir - Tony Scott
Out of all of the contemporary vampire films which the 1980s produced, Tony Scott's adaptation of Whitley Strieber's novel The Hunger was the most romantically ethereal. As is common with many other stories that utilize the vampirism concept as metaphor, here the emphasis is on overwhelming guilt and loneliness brought on by centuries of immortality. Yet as opposed to having such guilt from feeding off of several lifetime's worth of victims, that guilt here comes from one's undead partner only being granted eternal youth for a small handful of centuries. As Catherine Deneuve endlessly wanders through her existence, her past lovers are left as immobile husks of their once fulfilled and blood-sucking selves. While the studio insisted on a different and unfocused ending in a failed attempt to make it less of a downer, the almost montage-esque presentation that Scott commits to easily carries things through, with gorgeous and naturally lit cinematography, classical music, and a profoundly somber atmosphere forgiving some of the unfortunate narrative missteps.
(1958)
Dir - Kurt Neumann
A sci-fi B-movie from 20th Century Fox, The Fly became a surprise hit that spawned two sequels and a much lauded remake nearly thirty years later with David Cronenberg's highly different take on the bare bones premise. Faithfully adapting George Langelaan's short story of the same name that was initially published in a June, 1957 issue of Playboy, screenwriter James Clavell stages everything in three distinct sections, book-ending the film with the aftermath of scientist André Delambre's tragic experiments that leave him with a fly head on a human body and his human head on a fly's body. Ridiculous on paper and causing co-stars Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall to fall into howling laughter during the shooting of the memorable "Help me! Help me!" scene, it features a fantastic creature design, colorful, sparking lab equipment, and is expertly crafted all around.
(2023)
Dir - Indiana Bell/Josiah Allen
Dipping in a specific kind of paranoia, Indiana Bell and Josiah Allen's full-length debut You'll Never Find Me is a masterwork of brooding suspense, which examines the type of dark and all-consuming delirium brought on by self-exile, amongst other things. To say more would be to give too much away, but any fans of psychological horror will delight in the mostly one man and one woman play that Bell and Allen have concocted. Taking place entirely in a run-down trailer in the middle of the night and in the middle of a typhoon-worthy downpour, one character desperately knocks on the door of another and an intense series of monologues and long pauses only heightens the tension. Until the final rug-pull in the finale, we are guessing as to who is playing who, if indeed either of them knows themselves, and the claustrophobic setting, troubled sound design, and simmering performances are perfectly realized.
(1964)
Dir - Mario Bava
Stepping away from Gothic horror and further establishing the hallmarks of giallo cinema, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace would be another landmark film for the director. Fusing elements of West German krimis movies with the showy, vibrant, and primal color schemes that would continue to be his forte, Bava delivered probably his most memorable contribution to the brutally violent, misogynistic, black-gloved killer slasher genre that he had already helped create. Being a Bava movie, it is oozing with style and is visually spectacular in a way that few if any other filmmakers would be able to pull off with similar outings in the ensuing years. This would also serve as one of three collaborations between Bava and actor Cameron Mitchell and the only one of which was in the horror vein.
(1971)
Dir - Ken Russell
Ken Russell's textbook, over-the-top, and influential entry/precursor into the nunsploitation genre was The Devils; a purposely provocative and controversial work. Utilizing the historical account of Urbain Grandier's trial and execution, (documented in both Aldous Huxley's book The Devils of Loudun and John Whiting's play The Devils), Russell's style is bombastic throughout. Screaming, sexually repressed nuns and politically motivated inquisitors wreak comical havoc as the marvelously red/sweaty/pile of masculine meat that is Oliver Reed delivers what is arguably the performance of his career as the proud and defamed Grandier. The set and production design are both as impressive and imposing as the portrayals of barbaric religious fanaticism and bureaucratic scheming, making this a riveting and intense work not to be missed by any fan of the grandiose.
(1988)
Dir - John Carpenter
Largely in the sci-fi/action/social commentary realm, John Carpenter's on-the-nose compliance and consumerism satire They Live still feature's some of the 1980's most memorable movie "monsters" in the look of the blue/bug-eyed/skeletal aliens that have infiltrated the world's marketing empire. An adaptation of Ray Nelson's 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning", it was a rare leading vehicle for WWF's famed heel wrestler Roddy Piper who conveys a hilarious and deadpan charm that is well-suited for his blue collar, no name every man character. The nearly six-minute alley fight between he and Keith David is legendarily ridiculous as is Piper's ad-libbed "All out of bubblegum" line. The whole thing serves as Carpenter's most tongue-in-cheek bit of cinematic cynicism, yet it is as enjoyable as any of his other stellar works.
(1960)
Dir - Nobuo Nakagawa
The last movie from Shintoho before the studio declared bankruptcy, Jigoku doubles as filmmaker Nobuo Nakagawa's finest work in the horror genre. Told in two distinct sections and essentially a story about flawed individuals who have done some sort of deed to secure them a place in the Asian mythological version of hell, there is also a Faustian element at play with the dubious character portrayed by Yoichi Numata who seems to be tempting/taunting Shigeru Amachi and all of those around him. The final forty minutes of the movie are exceptionally realized, particularly on account of the modest budget and crumbling production company behind it. Infernal, surreal imagery practically pummels the screen and if anything else, it is a visual tour de force that was considerably ahead of its time.
(2017)
Dir - Yorgos Lanthimos
Never one to engage in conventional genre tropes, arthouse filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos delivered his to-date most horrifically eccentric work with 2017's The Killing of a Sacred Deer. A contemporary and idiosyncratic interpretation of Euripides' ancient Greek tragedy "Iphigenia in Aulis", there has arguably never been a movie that explores comeuppance in a more detached manner. With each actor delivering clinically accurate dialog with a zen-like calm, it is an amusingly awkward undertaking for the viewer if not the characters, becoming even more hilarious as it reaches its gut-wrenching finale and everyone involved is doing whatever they can to win over Colin Farrell's doomed surgeon who is faced with an impossibly tragic choice regarding his family. Barry Keoghan has been making a career out of exhibiting a type of matter-of-fact disturbed aloofness, having him be perfectly suited as the vengeful yet charming antagonist. Lanthimos' films are inescapably singular in their dry humor and confounding subject matter, with his presentation here wonderfully tweaking many of the sonic and visual conventions of horror on top of his already oddball, auteur shtick.
(1972)
Dir - William Crain
B-movie production company American International Pictures was destined to get around to blaxploitation and Blacula was their first merging of that with horror. Directed by William Crain, it has a television movie feel which is no surprise as he along with several of the cast members had come from such a background. The budget is also noticeably cheap as this does not have the most atmospheric set design or convincing undead makeup in the world. Yet it gets by on William Marshall's respectable performance and the sincere enough way that the material is handled. It is inherently difficult to take a movie very seriously that has such a title and there is some dated, unintended humor here or there, but as a genre mash-up, it is consistently fun. Essentially using the "centuries old vampire's resurrected lost love" trope and contemporizing it with funk music, afros, and hip lingo, there is still a creepy and camp charm present with the title character managing to come off as one of the most sympathetic of any cinematic vampire.
(1966)
Dir - Don Sharp
Shot back-to-back with Dracula: Prince of Darkness and featuring several of the same actors, Rasputin the Mad Monk serves as a tour de force for Christopher Lee as the diabolical title character. Historical accuracy is liberally done away with to make room for set pieces involving the more extravagant aspects of Grigori Rasputin's legend, of which there were many. This of course includes an elaborate death scene that is amazingly far less ridiculous than the one in which the real Rasputin actually succumbed to. Also because Hammer and because horror, the infamous Russian mystic is given proper if unexplained supernatural abilities. Playing the (un)holy man as a power-crazed, manipulative drunkard and rapist as well as an all-around sociopath, all elements of Rasputin's real life family are done away with and he becomes an over-the-top and one-dimensional villain in the process. Lee excels in a beautifully unrestrained performance though, easily one of the finest and most fun that he ever gave.
(1920)
Dir - Paul Wegener/Carl Boese
Filmmaker Paul Wegener's third movie to feature the Golem of Jewish folklore, (and the only one to have survived), was The Golem: How He Came into the World; a seminal work in German Expressionism. He and co-director Carl Boese based the film on Gustav Meyrink's 1915 novel, with Wegener himself playing the title character. Along with Robert Weine's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which was released the same year, this ushered in the man-made monster trope into horror cinema, though more literally here. Wegener himself portrays the creature as a lumbering brute in parts, yet he also exhibits bouts of emotion as things progress, remaining an intimidating figure throughout. An excellent demon summoning sequence plus the impressive and skewed set design makes this both visually compelling and influential for years after its release.
(1976)
Dir - Dan Curtis
One of only three theatrically released productions to be directed by Dark Shadows creator and prolific television filmmaker Dan Curtis, Burnt Offerings is one of the better haunted house movies from an era with many of them. An adaptation of Robert Marasco's novel of the same name, it was originally attached to Bob Fosse back in 1969, but a handful of plot elements were changed once Curtis got on board. One of his most memorable contributions was the addition of the creepy and grinning chauffeur played by character actor Anthony James. The rest of the eccentric cast includes Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, and a cameo by Burgess Meredith, with Reed being as aggressively sweaty as ever while Black oozes a jolly yet unnerving menace. It is a slow boil affair, yet Curtis was thankfully well-equipped to keep the atmosphere eerie. He was also helped by the wonderful setting of the Dunsmuir House in Oakland, California which makes for a conventional yet supernaturally unwholesome abode.
(2011)
Dir - Drew Goddard
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's collaborative kitchen sink hybrid of genre cliches in the form of The Cabin in the Woods works concurrently as a wonderful send up and homage. Each act was apparently written more or less in a day, with Goddard taking the director's chair for the first time and Whedon stepping down as the mere co-writer, though the Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator's sly sensibilities are all over the finished product. For horror fans, the movie is a giddy smorgasbord of references and not just in its parody of the typical one-dimensional characterizations found in such films where people routinely behave in an illogical manner so that the audience can root for their doom. It also delivers in the finale where the doors are literally busted open for every type of movie monster to get unleashed at once, linking it all in with good ole ancient Lovecraft entities. It may arguably be the best example of horror cinema getting the piss taken out of it while also using both its strengths and weaknesses for consistently clever results.
(1974)
Dir - José Mojica Marins
José Mojica Marins goes meta with The Bloody Exorcism of Coffin Joe; one of a handful of his films to feature his most famous blasphemy-spewing title character, yet separate from the official Coffin Joe trilogy. Here, Marins plays himself who while vacationing with friends during the holidays and suffering writer's block, comes face to face with his own fictional creation after a bizarre series of supernatural events repeatedly occur. The story makes little to no sense, but it is filled with wonderfully strange and atmospheric evilness that is only enhanced by the primitive production values. The sound design alone is quite the cacophony of randomly placed stock music, wailing victims, overlapping demonic voices, and avant-garde effects, plus the whole movie culminates in a long Satanic wedding ceremony that is appropriately macabre.
(1983)
Dir - Kuei Chih-Hung
A rare work in horror from director Kuei Chih-Hung, (be it of an acid-fueled and mystical showdown nature), The Boxer's Omen is one of the most fiendishly insane of the Shaw Brothers genre mash-ups. While it essentially has many traits of various other martial arts films that showcase a barrage of physics-defying supernatural feats, it is also a straight kickboxing movie at times. Almost bare on plot, it is purely a showcase for absurd set pieces one after the other that are both crude and elaborately inventive. A black magician demon lady gets resurrected by being sown into a dead crocodile with the help of her servants puking said crocodile's entrails back onto the carcass and on the good guy's end, our hero slices into his arm and places an invulnerability pebble there that was forged from a plant's tears. So yeah, lots of awesome/on drugs stuff like that.
(2016)
Dir - Tom Fanslau
The first in a series of independent found footage films where every aspect of production was handled by Tom Fanslau, the initial Bad Ben set an impressive template of DIY filmmaking. Rudimentary in its construction and premise, Fanslau shot it at his own home in New Jersey for a meager $300, exclusively with cell phone and surveillance footage. As the only person on screen, Fanslau is a hilarious and likeable schlub, portraying a no-nonsense everyman who has invested all of his money into a spacious home in order to flip it. The home of course is occupied by less than friendly spirits and though the supernatural activity follows the usual arbitrary path as far as logic goes, Fanslau maintains a tongue-in-cheek/parodying tone as he conveniently talks to himself and films everything for our enjoyment; things that rev up in severe and creepy intensity, leaving plenty of room to flesh out the details in many, many later installments.
(1980)
Dir - Paul Naschy
Lacking some of the amateurish shortcomings of his earlier Waldemar Daninsky efforts, Paul Naschy's Night of the Werewolf instead stands as his most full-realized throwback horror effort after over a decade of regularly churning them out. A quasi-remake of his 1970 film The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, it is loaded with more cliches than you can shake a silver-embedded cross at, but the amplified budget gives it a more sophisticated aesthetic. In addition to writing and staring as he was wont to do, Nashy's chops behind the lens are benefited by Alejandro Ulloa's ideal cinematography and library-cued music that only enhances slow-motion/fog-drenched shots of blood-sucking ladies and Naschy rampaging around in arguably the best lycanthropian make-up of his career. The plot is still juvenile and slow on the draw, but few if any of the Spanish Wolfman's efforts came out this polished.
(1974)
Dir - Terence Fisher
Dir - Terence Fisher
A proper swan song, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell closed out Hammer's best franchise and it doubles as director Terence Fisher's last effort from behind the lens. Shot in 1972, Peter Cushing is noticeably gaunt here, (having been going through personal tragedy after the death of his wife), yet this gives the Baron an ideal angle as we meet him for the final time in hiding as the resident physician at an insane asylum. Presumably keeping a low profile for years yet still conducting his god-playing experiments behind a literal closed wall, Cushing is beaten down and venturing into full on pathetic madness instead of relentlessly cold determination. David Prowse plays the monster for the second time and his appearance is the most outrageous in the series, a hunched over and hairy brute with the mind of a violin-playing professor. Hammer's Gothic horror outings were old hat by the mid-70s, but it is still lovely to see them hit one more out of the park before wrapping it all up.
(1997)
Dir - Satoshi Kon
The psychological OVA thriller Perfect Blue is the debut for director Satoshi Kon and works as well if not better than most live action giallos that deal with the untrustworthy nature of perceived reality and identity crisis run amok. An adaptation of Yoshikazu Takeuchi's novel Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, Kon changed some of the story elements, enhancing or downright inventing the mind-melting turmoil for the protagonist who is more directly haunted by her pop star image as opposed to it just being an obsessive fan as in the source material. Without taking any noticeable advantage of the animated medium, the film is instead cinematically staged, which makes things grounded even though it is also persistently hallucinatory.
(1954)
Dir - Ishirō Honda
The most enduring of giant monster movies, the initial Godzilla from director Ishirō Honda and the Toho production company both kickstarted cinema's heavily-sequeled franchise and put the kaiju genre on the map. Future installments would all retread various elements here, (the post nuclear bombing of Japan to close out World War II, scientists and military personnel bashing their heads together in trying to come up with a plan to defeat the radiation-charged title creature, some human characters to focus on in between the destruction sequences, etc), so this one deserves points for establishing a well-mined formula. It also remains an engaging watch all these decades later, with everyone on board taking the story seriously enough to make the dated suitmation and miniature work come off as both delightful and intense.
(1970)
Dir - Jean Rollin
For his second full-length and first in color, French fantastique filmmaker Jean Rollin continued to establish himself as a proponent of the bizarre. La Vampire Nue, (The Nude Vampire), only particularly delivers on its title. There is nudity and the word "vampire" is tossed around liberally, but it ends up being a ruse almost as a horror movie altogether, let alone a deliberately left of center arthouse one. Narrative cohesion in Rollin movies were hardly a given and this is as much the case here as anywhere in his work. Thankfully, the surreal atmosphere is front and center with a number of slow moving, utterly strange, and equally beautiful, unsettling moments. Shots of grandiose châteaus and Rollin's favorite desolate beach setting are used to gorgeous effect, with unnatural performances and some wonderfully creepy scenes, such as a cult wearing crude animal masks. This was also the director's first collaboration with the Castel twins who he would go on to use a few other times in his career.
(1980)
Dir - Brian De Palma
Returning once again to full-on Hitchcock worship, Brian De Palma's politically incorrect erotic thriller Dressed to Kill serves as America's clearest answer to Italian giallos. As ridiculous and flashy as anything in the Euro-slasher vein, it has an escort girl protagonist, kills of its well-known would-be lead in the first act, and sports a transvestite killer that makes silly recordings in a disturbed voice and still manages to wear black gloves and a trench coat. Coming from a filmmaker like De Palma who embraces such extravagance with a technical and suspense-laden mastery that few of his contemporaries posses, the results are more fun than the sensationalized material deserves. Throw in some subtly campy performances from Michael Caine and Nancy Allen, (plus enough split-screen antics to delight any cinephile), and you can hardly lose.
(1966)
Dir - Mario Bava
Though it was wrought with budgetary problems as the production company F.U.L. Films ran out of money mid-way through, Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill still managed to become one of several paramount works in the director's catalog. This was the third and last collaboration between he and actor Giacomo Rossi Stuart who portrays a dashing doctor tasked with performing an autopsy on a woman killed in a cursed Carpathian village. The movie is often credited with introducing the "ghost with a bouncing ball" concept into the genre, one which was picked up by various other filmmakers since. While the story has a typical if plenty sufficient Gothic supernatural simplicity to it, this is a Bava film which of course means that it is gorgeously photographed and atmospheric as all get out. Shot partially on location in Italy, everything is bathed in eerie primal colors and the crumbling, cobweb-ridden abodes and fog-drenched cemeteries just look fantastic.
(1987)
Dir- John Carpenter
The most conceptually ambitious movie in John Carpenter's career up until this point was the second in his "Apocalypse Trilogy", Prince of Darkness. A return to smaller budgeted filmmaking which allowed him creative control, Carpenter fused theoretical physics and atomic theory with religion in a story that recalls transmitted dreams from the future, alien visitation, parallel universes, and Satan being the son of an ancient anti-god deity. Considering that Carpenter penned the screenplay under the name Martin Quatermass, it is fitting that he swiped a handful of ideas from the work of Nigel Kneale, with the finished result being a wonderful melting pot of familiar tropes. Stylistically, the wide anamorphic cinematography is terrific and as is always the case, Carpenter's score creates an foreboding mood right out of the gate. There is also a cameo from Alice Cooper as a pale-faced homeless zombie, plus this has one of the greatest bug-infested death scenes ever shot.
(1959)
Dir - Terence Fisher
Sherlock Holmes and Gothic horror are hardly synonymous phrases, yet leave it to Hammer Film Productions to splendidly combine the two in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Also serving as a remake to the 1939 version with Basil Rathbone, the dream team of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and director Terence Fisher lock horns once again with Cushing, (a great admirer of and expert on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's literary works), making a strong Holmes. As one could logically expect, the story itself is a straight-ahead mystery and the ultimate reveal does not afford any actual supernatural tomfoolery, yet Fisher styles the movie identically to any of Hammer's other notable horror outings. The respectable presence of Lee and Cushing only further exemplifies this and there is enough menace on the soundtrack and fog on everything else to make it another classy and macabre production.
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